"The thought occurred to me whether most of the folks so keen on 'banning' this person could stand up to the same scrutiny if applied to their sex life, and they have made one's 'sexual relationships' somehow the central part of the hobby of role playing games, are they really prepared for that?"~comment by Branduan, related to a post on Blood of Prokopius
Forgive me, I feel the need to be political.
This has been a little pedantic, and the way I would explain it to a child ... but the concept is so bitterly infantile that it seems appropriate. I've been in two internet conversations in the last month where someone directly attacked me with this argument ~ and of course, without acknowledgement that I might not be the cretinous liar and scumbag under discussed. It is convenient for the argument that the maker can feel perfectly justified in calling anyone out, since clearly (they would argue) evidence isn't needed to find a person guilty.
Point in fact: Zak's guilt isn't relevant. I recognize that it seems his guilt should be relevant, given that it would be a tragedy that he lost his reputation, his readership, his design associates and much of the future he had planned over a scheme directed at him by ... hm, how to put this so that it sounds like Zak is innocent ... a group of lying, nasty ex-lovers of his with an axe to grind, for lols. [sorry, for my money, that sounds fucking ridiculous ~ but for the sake of argument, let that sit].
But it is not relevant because this isn't a court. And Zak's popularity is not based on his innocence. Zak invested his popularity whole hog in the very same women who are kneeing him in the balls, whether justifiably or not. Zak put his head on the chopping block. And Mandy hit it with her axe.
This doesn't seem to sink in with the apologists. Frank Mentzer, another recent case, banked all of his credibility on his association with Gary Gygax, his ability to write game content and his friendly association with people in the RPG community. And then he deliberately, whether or not innocently, went around pissing off people in that same community, swinging the entitlement he felt about the work he'd done, while failing to get a recent kickstarter off the ground and failing to pay people for work they'd done on his projects.
You just don't do that. His reputation was built on people liking him. His reputation was built on completing projects. If you fuck up those two things, while letting yourself get dragged into a dumb bulletin board scrum, making wild threats against non-celebrities, it is going to bite you in the ass.
He didn't mind his business. His guilt is irrelevant. His actions suggest that people really shouldn't like him. Being liked and not being liked are not subject to court cases, innocence before guilt or whether or not the haters are being "fair."
Here's a big fat shock for people who want to argue philosophy about the virtues of forgiveness and charity, or who want to warn us that the terrible Sword of Damocles hangs over all our heads. We feel entitled to make up our minds about whomever we want, in any way we want. We don't need a reason. We don't need to explain ourselves. It isn't logical or rational. It's visceral.
There are a lot of people on the internet that hate me. I haven't used any women to make my blog; I haven't threatened people on bulletin boards. I haven't tried to use my influence to get anyone banned from anything. I don't have any influence. Because I'm very much disliked by a great many people. I don't feel they have a good reason to dislike me. They don't know me. They don't know how generous I can be or how quiet and peaceful I am. Nevertheless, they feel very much, absolutely, that I deserve, truly deserve, the burning fire of their hatred, given that I occasionally crap on 5e or because I write mockingly about storytelling or heroes of theirs like Coleville. I'm a nutjob. I'm a fucking asshole. I'm grouchy and self-centered. I'm narcissistic. I'm likely autistic. I have mental health issues and I'm sociopathic. These are all words that have been used to describe me by people on twitter and elsewhere ... and that is the tip of the iceberg.
If hate is the only criteria, why am I still here, and not being haranged right now, while Zak and Frank are being burned in effigy?
I hitched my wagon to this blog, my work ethic and my philosophy. I did not hitch my wagon to porn stars. I did not film myself with porn stars as a means of achieving fame. And I did not then give those same porn stars a reason to knock off my head.
I presented a philosophy that some readers could appreciate. I don't exploit these readers. I try to teach. That's all. If someone can somehow expose me to my readers as "not actually being a teacher," I'm in terrible, terrible trouble.
I can't imagine how my sex life would be relevant. If my partner Tamara starting writing truly awful letters about me, I don't doubt that my readers would have reason to pause.
But here's the thing: tomorrow, Tamara and I will have been together for 17 years. It's our anniversary. We're rather overmuch in love with each other. Of all the things in the world I have to worry about, being stabbed in the back by my love is not one of them. I suppose that's very difficult to imagine for a lot of people to imagine ... that two people can be so much in love, that their lives can be so tightly wound together, where the pain one feels is immediate felt, and healed, by the other. If my "sexual relationship" became a huge thing online, Tamara and I would sit down, turn on a mic and spend quite awhile talking about it, until others would understand exactly where we were with that.
That won't work for #MeToo "victims" like Zak.
Guess why.
On the Cargo Cult page on Wikipedia, I find the following quote:
ReplyDelete"Cargo cults are marked by a number of common characteristics, including a 'myth-dream' that is a synthesis of indigenous and foreign elements; the expectation of help from the ancestors; charismatic leaders; and lastly, belief in the appearance of an abundance of goods. The indigenous societies of Melanesia were typically characterized by a 'big man' political system in which individuals gained prestige through gift exchanges. The more wealth a man could distribute, the more people in his debt, and the greater his renown. Those who were unable to reciprocate were identified as 'rubbish men.' Faced, through colonialism, with foreigners with a seemingly unending supply of goods for exchange, indigenous Melanesians experienced 'value dominance.' That is, they were dominated by others in terms of their own (not the foreign) value system; exchange with foreigners left them feeling like rubbish men."
In my incredible arrogance, I interpret the "myth-dream" as the invention of D&D; the "ancestors" and the "charismatic leaders" as Gygax, Arneson, Mentzer and so on; the "big man political system" as the WOTC; and the renown of the company being founded on most everything about people's memories and ideas originating with the big man. I interpret myself as the foreigner, with an unending supply of ideas, arguments, possibilities, advancements and so on. My value system makes the company's look like trash. And those who cannot keep up, and cannot let go of the company's trash, feel like "rubbish men."
That's why I'm hated.
That, and I am such an arrogant fuck.
Alexis,
ReplyDeleteWhen I was a young man, I had a dream I could make friends of everyone on the planet. As I grow older, I realize being disliked by some people is not only natural, it is a badge of honour if you are hated for being true to yourself.
The Zak affair, like so many online things, has resulted in people rushing to take sides, instead of reserving judgment and waiting to let a real court decide guilt. The mediated public sphere is rife with tribalism and knee jerk reactions, trolling and baiting.
Public discourse has become invasive and ugly.
Better to stay out of it, live lives worth living and play games worth playing.
I appreciate you for striving to walk that path.
Tedankhamen
Interesting in light of the recent Mueller report that basically said Trump was bashed and treated as guilty by many for two years when their was actually no evidence of the suspected crime and the evidence that led to the investigation in the first place was highly questionable.
ReplyDeleteThe idea is not that everyone is a dirtbag waiting to be discovered, but that a false accusation does so much damage (to most people at least) that we should be wary of jumping on the band wagon.
Now Zak, and Trump are both obnoxious so few shed tears over their difficulties (and I'm not suggesting Zak is innocent just to be clear). But an innocent person treated he same way, well that would be horrible.
ruprecht,
ReplyDeleteI grew up a social leper. Being hated without justification was my entire childhood, from the walk to school, through all my classes, persecuted by both the students and the teachers. Catcalls, my books dumped in the halls, shoved into lockers, rabbit-punched, etcetera. I know exactly what it feels like to be an innocent person treated like that.
I was viewed as obnoxious. Few shed tears. But let me explain something about innocence. Innocence is its own shield. Never, ever, pity the innocent.
Tedankhamen,
Addressing that self-same childhood. I don't remember any time when public discourse was respectful and pretty. As invasive goes, the internet isn't lynching, it isn't broken windows, it isn't a lot of things that humans do when they rush to take a side. It's words. This isn't tribalism. That's a convenient word the news uses to belay the fact that it's human, it's normal, it's expected. Calling it "tribalism" suggests that somehow it's a philosophy that we're suddenly going to stop doing once everyone sees the light. Nonsense.
There's no real court. Therefore, there's nothing to wait for. There's no judgement that needs reserving. This is the public sphere. We're all walking a knife edge. And the more popular anyone becomes, the more famous, the thinner and sharper that knife gets. Those who won't be careful, who will lackadaisically play with inventing letters and building up resentment through fucking over one's allies and lovers, will fall. Those were the rules when Fatty Arbuckle played fast and loose with a girl in a hotel room in 1921. Those have always been the rules. If you get up on this edge, don't fuck around. Tread carefully. Know the consequences. Don't expect to talk your way out of it.